Italian sport strengthens its ability to generate economic, educational and social value. This is the summary of the 2023 edition of theObservatory on the Sport System Italian of Banca Ifis, which highlights the increase in revenues which exceed the ceiling of 102 billion euro and which, with an incidence on GDP of 3.4%, almost settles back to the pre-crisis values, confirming its solid contribution to the country’s economy. As is the contribution to employment, with over 405,000 employees operating at various levels in the sector which includes 67,000 sports clubs, 10,000 manufacturing companies, 9,500 plant management companies and 50 publishing and betting companies.
The perimeter of the second edition
In this second edition of the report on the Sport System, Banca Ifis wanted to further enrich the range of tools available to insiders and stakeholders operating in the sport business, adding useful elements to provide a “toolbox” more and more functional. In the first place, it is the time frame that is spread over a wider period: to allow for comparisons and to monitor trends, the second edition is characterized by considering three different years. Starting from 2019, the pre-pandemic reference year, moving on to the 2021 values estimated in the last edition, re-parameterised full year and final balance, up to the recent past, with the photograph of 2022.
Analyzing instead the four pillars that support the Sport System (upstream companies, core companies, downstream companies and positive externalities) it is interesting to note how, during 2022, manufacturing companies showed resilience, largely reabsorbing the important inflationary impact and seizing the renewed opportunities on international markets with an increase in exports which pushed up turnover. In fact, revenues grew by 16% compared to pre-crisis values for a total of €20.1 billion in revenues generated.
The so-called companies have not proved to be outdone corei.e. the plant management companies and actual sports clubs which, despite having heavily discounted the quotas due to the pandemic that characterized the first half of 2022, were able, the first to record a recovery in revenues on the 2019 (6.1 billion € vs. 6.2 billion €) and the latter to accrue an increase in terms of employees (+3.2%) and the number of companies (+3.1%), a signal that also represents the litmus test of the growing desire for sport of Italians and which allows us to envisage solid development in 2023.
The downstream companies, which brings together the players in sports publishing, events and sports betting, represent the sector that has been least affected by the pandemic effects, even increasing revenues compared to the pre-pandemic, with a 16% increase driven especially from sports betting (+32% on 2019) which in 2022 account for almost 13% of legal gaming in Italy, with €16.5 billion in revenues; football, tennis and basketball are confirmed as the 3 main sports.
Finally, the positive externalities, which in 2022 affirm the ability of sport to create increasing value (+13% vs 2019) even indirectly, acting on collateral but equally important areas such as the potential for improvement in health and safety and the involvement of young people in healthy and training activities that positively direct their behaviors and lifestyles. A positive trend that did not occur by chance, but represented the result of the benefit on the sports movement of the international successes of our athletes and the ability to spread amateur sports activity, which in 2022 involved more than 66% of the Italian population .
The desire for experiences and the growth of sports tourism
The progressive easing of health restrictions has allowed the recovery of sports tourism. The desire to move to take part in an event outside the domestic dimension that had forcibly characterized the pandemic two-year period was so strong that although there were still limitations in the first half of 2022, the second half of the year was enough to lead to a substantial realignment to the 2019 values of the total expenditure for sports tourism, equal to over 7.2 billion euros. A figure that acquires even more value if we consider that, also thanks to geo-political tensions, tourist flows recorded 4 million fewer presences than in the pre-crisis period.
A set of factors which, if analyzed in their entirety, must however invite calm: the per capita expenditure of sports tourists has grown by 9% thanks to the increase in the activities carried out during the trip (with peaks of +27% for visits to exhibitions, museums and the like) and despite the increase in costs, especially of the ticket office, due to inflation. Therefore, the future potential, even in the short term, of tourism in general and sports tourism in particular can only be high.
The value of major sporting events: the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup
One of the prominent elements of the 2023 edition of the Observatory on the Italian Sport System is represented by the analysis of the scope of major sporting events: real driving forces involving national and supranational bodies at various levels and an object of global interest.
The two major sporting events par excellence were reviewed: the Olympic Games and the World Cup, global phenomena which reflect on the host countries and cities at various levels.
In fact, these are events that attract millions of visitors (more than 1 million in the last edition of the Olympics with an audience and over 1.6 million in the last edition of the World Cup) and which generate billions of revenues, with a range that goes from 6.5 billion euros in Rio 2016 to 8.3 billion euros in Tokyo 2020 on the Olympic front and from 9.3 billion euros in Russia 2018 to over 12.3 billion euros of Qatar 2022 regarding the soccer world cup. A turnover that benefits from many components, in particular revenues are added to the already significant amount of tourist expenditure core mainly represented by TV rights and sponsorships.
But beyond the absolute and equally impactful numbers, every major sporting event represents an unrepeatable opportunity to make investments in permanent assets, such as plants and infrastructures, which involve a major renewal for the host country and are a source of value medium-long term for the area.